In U.S. Pat. No. 2,840,459, assigned to the same assignee as the present invention, there is disclosed a process and apparatus for the continuous extraction of oils and/or soluble materials from particulate materials and comprised of a large vessel forming a vapor-right enclosure in which there is disposed a rotor including a plurality of cells formed by radially disposed inner walls extending toward and mounted to peripherally-disposed end walls. A plurality of fluid manifold assemblies are radially disposed above the cells in a preselect manner to permit the introduction of miscella and solvent stream into the cells, generally to effect a countercurrent extraction utilizing percolation techniques. The bottom of each cell is provided with a hinged-door assembly including associated equipment for opening and closing each cell. Drainage compartments generally underlie the cells for collecting miscella, i.e. a solution of oil and solvent for recycle within the apparatus, and eventual withdrawal as described in such aforementioned U.S. Letters Patent.
Such manifold assemblies are generally long pipe sections of large diameters with slotted openings and fixed deflectors and protrude through the vapor-tight enclosure. Each such manifold assembly is provided with a flange member assembled to the vapor-tight enclosure in a manner to permit adjustment. The flooding fluid (including fines in the case of miscellas) is introduced into the pipe sections and is discharged via the slots into the particulate material in the cells positioned therebelow. The angle of fluid discharge of each manifold is adjusted by unbolting the flange and rotating the pipe section to the desired position after process shut-down of the extractor assembly which remains shut-down until all adjustments are made to the manifold assemblies. During shut-down, it is convenient to remove fines from within the pipe sections resulting from the continuous circulation of miscella streams including fines which deleterious effect processing operation by build-up and bridging of the fines. Fines build-up and/or bridging require shut-down and fine removal notwithstanding any necessity of manifold assembly adjustment.